Floored!

Chrissy B reporting here from Plague Farmlet, where residents at House CEDAR are still recovering from a dread lurgy. The sound of coughing reverberates through the halls, and regional sales of paracetamol have spiked. Don’t worry, I’m holding my breath while I type this, so you are quite safe.

What I’m really here to tell you about is the progress in the kitchen. Since I last updated you we have had a flurry of activity, during which cork tiles have been laid and polyurethaned. Here, let me show you how it looks.

Kitchen resplendent with cork tile floor.

Now how about we take a trip through time and I’ll lay out the changes so far step by step like a good blogger. Links to the original posts included in case you haven’t been around for all of the transformations.

Where we started. This was the real estate agent’s photo from when we bought the farmlet.

March 2016: I pulled out a cupboard with my bare hands, and installed the dishwasher.

September 2017: In which I painted the cupboards indigo. That ugly mark on the vinyl is still there.

July 2019: With the stainless steel kitchen bench. Still have the that stain on the vinyl!

There are some smaller changes in the photo above I haven’t blogged about.

• The stainless steel panel behind the oven was levered off by a small and determined Serbian woman wielding a large screwdriver (thank you Mira).
• The pantry doors (those louvre doors on the right hand side of the picture) were spray-painted white.
• I removed some shelves to the left of the sink.

And now here we are, up to date again.

November 2019: Floor completed. Note the new shelves above the dishwasher.

The next big change will be installing a white tile splash-back all the way up to the ceiling (my inspiration pic for that is here). In preparation for that:

• The diagonal ‘pine crime’ from the top of the walls will be removed (you can see the actual line of the ceiling best in the July 2019 pic).
• The hole below the range hood will be patched and the off-centre oven power switch moved (I have strong opinions about having things centered).
• I may, or may not, paint the tongue and groove backing of the bench in the foreground. When I first painted the cupboards it seemed like a fairly obvious ‘yes, paint it white’ — I held off, knowing that once you’ve painted wood there is no going back. I have this inkling that after the rest of the pine has gone that bit of rustic-ness might be a welcome contrast to all the hard shiny surfaces I’m installing. Thoughts anyone?
• Stephen of House Kragbol* has very, very kindly agreed to help me flip that ugly fuse box above the microwave around so that it sits on the outside of the house instead of the inside.
• The window architrave will be reinstalled and painted white, the pantry door architrave also.
• And I might, might, might splash out on double glazed windows to replace those single glazed, very 1980’s style brown aluminum ones. It would be a huge extravagance, but if I’m ever going to make that change it needs to be now before the splash-back tile is installed. That’s the thing with renovations; one thing leads to another. Big decisions. I’ll keep you posted.

So, plenty to keep me busy, and a few more hours of pleasant decision making to entertain my brain any time I have trouble dropping off to sleep.

* Don’t try this at home. I’m just lucky that Stephen has all the necessary electrical qualifications to move meter boxes.